Beta Review
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:17 pm
I didn't see a topic on just general review of the game in it's beta form. There are several things I am very, very impressed with. First, the Humor. Who is your writer!? There are very few lines of dialog that fail to amuse me. The mouse over text is like a constant Easter egg. I'm also super impressed how many major conceptual changes went into the game without losing too much balance - like the new gold system. It's ingenious. It still limits how much gold you can take into the dungeon, but yet there is an overall reward for collecting gold. Well done. I expected the items system to throw the game off balance, but it works out nicely. The items may give a slight edge in certain situations, even if you just recycle them.
The variety of dungeons is fantastic also. I do admit there is a tradeoff: with the old system, you ran through a dungeon enough times to develop a good understanding and strategy for beating that particular dungeon. The generation system was good enough that it was worth playing the dungeon 12 times over with different classes as it's own reward. Now, we have more variety, less repetition. What we end up with is a much greater "what's next" factor with a slight loss in replay-ability. This said having not completed the game - I imagine there will be plenty of end-game challenges that will more than make up for the "loss"
*edit: I wanted to add how much I loved the new deity unlock system, complete with their own challenges. Good stuff.
Anyway, I'd give the beta 11/10 as a beta, and a 8/10 if this was the end product. Good job guys.
The variety of dungeons is fantastic also. I do admit there is a tradeoff: with the old system, you ran through a dungeon enough times to develop a good understanding and strategy for beating that particular dungeon. The generation system was good enough that it was worth playing the dungeon 12 times over with different classes as it's own reward. Now, we have more variety, less repetition. What we end up with is a much greater "what's next" factor with a slight loss in replay-ability. This said having not completed the game - I imagine there will be plenty of end-game challenges that will more than make up for the "loss"
*edit: I wanted to add how much I loved the new deity unlock system, complete with their own challenges. Good stuff.
Anyway, I'd give the beta 11/10 as a beta, and a 8/10 if this was the end product. Good job guys.